Wednesday, July 20, 2011

And the finalists are...

We have 7 choices for where we'll do our 2 polls this week. Voting is open until 5 PM today.

-California. There's been some polling showing Dianne Feinstein with weakening approval numbers. But would she actually be in any trouble against a named Republican candidate? Interested in looking at that and of course there's always plenty of good stuff to look at in our nation's biggest state.

-Colorado. There's no Gubernatorial or Senate race next year and that's why we haven't polled it that much but it could prove to be one of the most pivotal swing states in next year's election. Barack Obama won it by an impressive margin last time. How's he holding up?

-Kentucky. One of the few states with an important race in 2011- the one for Governor, which we haven't looked at since last October. Also very interested to get a first look at Rand Paul's approval numbers, and could Kentucky be the elusive state where Sarah Palin is popular?

-Michigan. This one needs no explanation- the Senate race just got a lot more interesting with Pete Hoekstra's reconsideration. Also very interested to see how Obama's doing here- if his numbers are as weak as they are in Pennsylvania that's very bad news. And has Rick Snyder's decline continued, stabilized, or has he maybe even shown a little improvement?

-Vermont. One of the few states where we've never done a public poll and there are a few interesting things worth looking at- would Tom Salmon pose a threat to Bernie Sanders in the Senate race, is Peter Shumlin going to have a trouble winning a second term?

-Virginia. Not all that interested in the Senate race- it will almost definitely be tied give or a take a few points. But this is a place where in 3 polls we've done since November Obama has held up very well...is that still the case? And since we took a first look at the 2013 Governor's race in New Jersey, we may as well do the same in Virginia.

-West Virginia. Haven't taken a look at the Governor's race since before the primary and it's always worth checking up on Joe Manchin whenever Democrats are going through a bit of a down period, as seems to be the case now, to see how he's holding up.

As always don't cheat- voting a few times on different computers is fine, creating a proxy to vote hundreds of times will get a state thrown out.